This Friday night Matt Varnish and I played a really epic battle between his Brits and my Canadians. It was a 1500 pts and the mission was Encounter with him running a Motor Rifles Company, while I was trying out my Canadian Armoured Company.
Here are the army lists
Never underestimate the RCA!
Here are the army lists
Brits (as well as I can remember)
OC and 2IC
2 x Motor Rifle Platoons with Piat
Anti-tank platoon with 4 x 6 Pdrs portees
Sherman III platoon
Universal carrier platoon with 3 carriers and extra machine gun
Royal Horse Artillery Battery with 4 Priests
Limited Air Support
Canadians
OC and 2IC in Sherman IIIs
2 x Sherman III platoons
Universal carrier platoon with 3 carriers
Infantry platoon with Piat
8 Gun Royal Canadian Artillery Battery
The battlefields in England for the training exercise. Objectives are in the woods bottom left, behind the black building, in the open top left and behind the hill top right.
Matt Varnish video tapping and Ca$h photo bombing the initial deployments
The Canadian guns deployed behind the high feature, guarding an objective with Shermans ready to race forward to the unguarded objective
Infantry occupy the buildings around the other objective
The Priest Battery Commander and his FOO guard the burned out Crusader just of screen to the left.
British FOO
Brit OC having tea at the country estate.
Brit Shermans deploy in the cover of some woods.
The dust from a fast moving column of Shermans attracts RAF attention
The Canadians dig in expecting RAF strafing runs.
Brit Shermans move to counter Canadian Shermans early play for the Crusader objective.
Initial bombardment from the RCA knock out a Brit Sherman (things are looking good for the Canadians).
Undaunted the Brits move to strike the Canadian tanks and protect the Crusader Objective.
The Priest 105mm and the Shermans prove to be to much for the colonial tanks and the platoon flees the field
Loses
Brits: Nil
Canadians: 1 Sherman Platoon
With the Crusader Objective secured the RAF start harassing the dug in Canadian Guns, while the Brit Shermans have a direct move in on them.
The timely arrival of the other Sherman platoon is met with elation only to have all 3 of them bog trying to go up the hill. RAF and Brit Shermans combine to destroy 2 Shermans from the Platoon but the Troop Commander stays in the fight. The Canadian guns over iron sights and remaining Shermans combine fire to knock out Brit Sherman and bail the other. The Brits fail their moral and flee.
Loses
Brits: Sherman Platoon
Canadians: Sherman Platoon
On the Canadian left flank the Recce section loses 2 carriers to the Brit carriers and Anti-tank guns, which allow the Canadian Infantry to move into assault positions. The intent here is to attack the 6 pdrs who can't defensive fire as they have no HE (stupid Brits!)
The Universal Carriers can't defensive fire as their hull mounted machine guns are facing the wrong way.
The guns pass their motivation check and break off the attack but the Universal Carriers fail their motivation and break off.
After facing the guns of the Universal Carriers again the Platoon destroys them in assault and them starts following up by destroying the anti-tank platoon in assault (can you smell VC!)
Loses
Brits: Shermans, Anti-tank Platoon, Universal Carriers
Canadians: Sherman platoon
Devestating Stonk from the RCA knock out 2 trucks and all their occupants, the remainder of the platoon flee. On the other flank the 2IC tank assaults and kills the other Motor Rifle platoon that was digging in on the objective breaking that platoon.
Loses
Brits: Shermans, Anti-tank, Universal carriers and 2 Motor Rifle Platoons
Canadians: Sherman platoon
Matt Varnish passed the first company moral check and some unlucky bog checks on his priest meant they were largely ineffective. The following turn this was his roll.
Canadians take the victory 5 - 1
This game was incredibly close and went something like 12 turns. It was the first time for me playing an armoured company and it was awesome. I'm looking forward to trying them again soon. Matt made a video of the battle and will be posting it on his blog Druken gamers of Ottawa.
Great Pics.. The video to the battle will be up in a few days. lesson learned.. never use trucks if you don't have to, and always have stuff facing infantry for defensive fire!!!
ReplyDeleteAlso, in 'Das Book' in the very back, is where it states that AA MG's are also Defensive Fire MGs, so can only fire AA if they are attacked, if the main gun has not fired (commander cant multitask apparently) and get penalized if they get assaulted after firing them.. getting grenades tossed into the open hatch isn't too fun apparently.